


what lies between your beauty and my heart

by erlkoenig



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ardor in August, M/M, Mild Angst with a happy ending, a 'what if they both had lived to the third era', somewhat responsible use of wine
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:30:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,283
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11786079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/erlkoenig/pseuds/erlkoenig
Summary: This is dangerous, he thinks again but maybe it’s something they need, to tempt disaster again like old times. He has a thousand litanies to violence and betrayal, they can afford themselves one night of gentleness -- or at least the closest they can come to the real thing.Daeron and Maglor find each other again.Title is from Edna St. Vincent Millay's Sonnet CXIV





	what lies between your beauty and my heart

**Author's Note:**

  * For [amyfortuna](https://archiveofourown.org/users/amyfortuna/gifts).



_ I will put Chaos into fourteen lines _ __  
_ And keep him there; and let him thence escape.. _ __  
_..Past are the hours, the years of our duress, _ __  
_ His arrogance, our awful servitude: _ __  
_ I have him. He is nothing more nor less _ __  
_ Than something simple not yet understood _ __  
_ I shall not even force him to confess; _ __  
_ Or answer. I will only make him good. _ __  
_ \--Edna St. Vincent Millay // I Will Put Chaos Into Fourteen Lines _ __  
  


 

 

 

He knows him.

Not right away, but there's something about that face, dark-haired and bright-eyed and full of melancholy. It brings up memories he had thought long dead, buried in the broken and cracked ruins of his heart. So many better days, many more for the worse. He shakes his head to clear his thoughts, trying to place those eyes, that hushed-whisper of voice, like a song carried on a breeze.

It’s this that draws him over to the darkened corner of the inn, his feet leading him there as if with each step he might be closer to reaching into his own mind to pull out that thread of memory. There’s a stone resting in his stomach, and there’s a curiosity that burns in him. Their kind do not often wander here, and yet here they both are. He’d call it fate, but fate has never been kind to him in the past.

Perhaps they are both just simply lost.

Those bright silver eyes look up at him, reach for some weapon at his hip -- a dagger perhaps -- and this somehow-familiar stranger fixes him with a stare that might have been menacing if not for the exhaustion and sadness writ so clearly on his face.

There’s a flicker of candle flame across his features, it lights up those eyes, the down-turned corners of his lips. He knows that face now, knows him well and he almost wants to laugh about. It was supposed to have been a night of drowning wraiths in cheap wine, not sitting with them, and yet he clutches the battered mug tighter and slips into the seat across from the other elf.

"I thought you wandered west of here." The wine is weak but he sips it. It’s something to do with his hands as Maglor, the last of Feanor's sons, twitches his own hand on his dagger. "Isn't that what the poems say?"

"Do I know you?" Maglor asks, and Daeron listens for a slur of words, for too much wine, but the shadows passing over the Noldor's face are not from drink.

"Once upon a time and long, long ago." He waves his hand dismissively, gulps down half his mug and waits for something, for anything. Perhaps in those long-ago days he might have had reservations about sitting with a Noldo, with a  _ kinslayer, _ but he finds he can't bring himself to care.

There's a word for it, exhaustion brought about by senseless acts of violence. It's on the tip of his tongue and he thinks if he had half a mind to try, he might be able to taste it on the other's lips as well.

He pushes the thought away with a frown and forces a laugh when he realizes the other elf has been staring at him, a mix of irritation and something that might be worry on his fair features.

"Daeron." He says, grins sharp-toothed at him when those eyes widen, "Of Doriath. I believe you might have heard of the place."

"What do you want?”

"Company." It's said with a shrug, and he nearly shivers as he knows it's true. Company. He has been so without of late. “It’s so rare to find one’s kin in the wilds like this, and if we are of a like mind, perhaps we can find some things to talk about.”

"Company." Maglor turns the word over in his mouth, but his hands are now on the table in front of him and Daeron thinks this might be the most relaxed he can ask of the Noldo. "As long as it remains pleasant."

_ Pleasant _ . He bites back a sneer, swallows down a sharp reminder of their histories, how it is that Maglor, son of Feanor, is still standing and yet Doriath is not. But he’s tired, that bone-deep exhaustion and he doesn’t want to argue, to fight, not this night.

"You never answered my question,” Maglor tilts his head and arches a dark eyebrow in return. Daeron gestures vaguely, wine sloshing in his near-empty mug. “I have heard stories, the wraith by the sea and his mournful lamenting. Day and night, a shadow, a soft cry on the winds, swallowed by the rush of waves."

“Not too bad,” There’s a ghost of a smirk on Maglor’s lips, there for a moment and then gone. “I think you’re losing your touch, but it’s not the worst thing I’ve heard of myself of late.”

He laughs at that, loud and sharp and genuine. It feels good, like someone reaching between the slats of his ribs to pull out something dark and festering, and for a moment he can breathe again.

There are a thousand questions, a thousand stories he wants to pull out of the Noldo. There are a thousand songs he could write from him alone and there’s an ache in his chest to create, to write, to sing again. Something beautiful and sorrowful and full of a longing that isn’t his. Something terrible stirs in him as well, and he can remember a fall of black hair and dark eyes like a summer storm, soft laughter like the clear ringing of a bell, and dancing. Dancing.

More wine comes for them and he drinks like he’s dying and maybe for a moment he is. There’s an echoing sadness on Maglor’s face and at least he is not alone with his regrets.

“Why are you here?” It comes out harsher than he meant it.

“Why are you?” And it’s a fair enough question. Daeron shrugs, closes his eyes with a roll of his shoulders and thinks they’re in a battle of wits and words here and both sides are losing. There’s a parallel, and he thinks to bring it up to the other bard but that’s not what tumbles out of his mouth.

“Why?”

Maglor straightens, jaw clenched and eyes burning bright and fierce. There’s a shift in the air, something like the approach of a lightning storm, hot as a forge and cold as a grave all at once. That ache returns, the want, the  _ need _ to write something, anything about this, about  _ him _ , about the sons of Feanor and all their wicked deeds.

“Do not dance around it any longer and ask your questions if you wish, lay your blame and make your threats, but do it quickly.”

He has questions, he has blame to place but the words die in his mouth, bitter and copper like blood over his teeth. His fingers tap a rhythm on the table top, the pads of them pressing into the splintered grooves of hewn wood. The night may not yet be lost.

“There’s something to be said for the truly stupid things we have done for love.” He murmurs, and across from him Maglor chokes on his wine. “Keep your guilt and shame, you and I both know you will die with it. We were promised pleasant company, and so pleasant company we shall have.” Daeron drains his mug, lays down a few coins and heads for the door. He doesn’t look to see if he’s been followed, but behind him the tavern door bangs open and there’s another body falling into step behind him.

The night air is cool, the breeze tossing pale strands of hair across his face and he slows his step. He’s been running for too long. He’s tired of it.

“Arnor,” Maglor says softly. “Formerly Arnor, I suppose. I had heard you traveled east, over the Lhúndirien, but I would have never guessed you would settle in Bree-Land.”

“That’s because I did not settle, merely passing through.” The world had once been a wide and wild place to him, with lots of dark places where he could go to lick his wounds and grieve. But no longer, the edges of the map were filling in and shadows were coming back to haunt him. The moon hangs low and full in the night sky and the stars are mithril-bright and he supposes there are worse things that could happen.

They move away from the village, away from the warm yellow glow of the tavern, of the few houses scattered along the cobblestone road that winds its way over the land. They walk, until voices and laughter and snatches of song fade into the wind and they can hear the rush of the Baranduin in the distance. Peaceful, it’s peaceful and it soothes the ache in his chest.

“Here.” He says, his feet having lead them to a little copse of trees, hardly private but at least away from strangers’ eyes. He spreads his cloak on the ground, sits comfortably and pulls a wineskin from his belt. Maglor has not moved, just watching him with those silver eyes and Daeron refuses to let memories creep in again to steal this bit of comfort from him.

Tonight they are not themselves, they simply  _ are _ . Two wandering story-tellers passing the time. It’s quaint really, storybook almost, and he takes a few pulls of amber liquor from the skin, turning a story over in his mind.

He doesn’t demand anything of the other elf, half expects him to leave, to walk away from him and leave him to his musings and his drinking. But Maglor drops to the grass next to him, and when he takes the wineskin from him, Daeron releases a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

Maglor takes a drink, chokes around the mouthful and Daeron can’t help but grin.

“Traded for it with some men from the South. They say it’ll keep you warm on cold nights.”

“It’s vile.” Maglor says, takes another drink and that smirk is back. Daeron claims it as a victory.

“I suppose it’s in good company then.”

His words get only a soft hum in return. Already he feels a bit warmer and lays back, arms folded beneath his head to watch the stars dance in and out of the cracks in the canopy of leaves.

Silence falls between them and they both know they’re dancing around questions again because neither of them expected to get this far. It’s Maglor who braves to break the reverie again, picks up that hummed note from before and pulls it into something. A soft, lilting rise and fall, swell and break, and Daeron closes his eyes, allows his mind to drift. The rush of the Baranduin becomes something else, a gentle roar of the sea, waves breaking along the shore. Grass fades into white sand, as fine as powdered quartz and he can taste salt on his lips, can feel the spray of water on his face. There’s a voice on the wind, singing to him, something full of hurt and pride and regret, and he can feel the stone move up into his throat. There are words trapped behind his teeth that want to answer that song, but when he touches his fingertips to his face they come away wet and the song drifts away from the shore.

When he opens his eyes, the stars are blurred by tears, a smear of white light and silver dust on black. His hand shakes as it reaches out between them, until he can feel a brush of fabric, the other elf’s shirt sleeve against his skin, and it takes all he has not to curl his fingers tight into the cloth and try to pull him close.

_ Company _ , he thinks bitterly, swipes the back of his hand across his eyes,  _ almost sounds as if I am lonely. _ And he is, they both are, lost and alone of their own doing.

“Write something with me,” The words tumble out in a rush, loud in the quiet air and Maglor starts next to him, a quick intake of breath between clenched teeth.

“Do what now?”

He sits up, reaches for the wineskin and drinks to clear his mind. “Maybe it is mere coincidence that we met tonight, maybe not. Either way, we should create something together.” He presses the wineskin into Maglor’s hands, taps that now familiar rhythm, the one from the tavern, against the inside of the elf’s wrist. It’s soft, warm against his own skin and he’s surprised to find he’s reluctant to move his hands when Maglor raises the wineskin to drink.

“No one will sing it.”

“We will.”

Maglor laughs. It’s the first time Daeron has heard it and it’s sharp, bittersweet, lovely in its way. He wants to hear it again, and he thinks  _ this is dangerous.  _ Maglor hands him back the skin and their hands touch again, linger and they both know this is dangerous.

“What shall we write then?”

“We’ll sing them together, two different songs, one on top of the other, verses blending together telling the same story.”

“What story?”

Daeron looks back to him, caught in the snare of those eyes and he’s breathless, flushed, filled to burst with a manic sort of charge that’s flowing just under his skin. “I don’t know.” He says, “Maybe we haven’t written it yet.”

_ This is dangerous _ , he thinks again but maybe it’s something they need, to tempt disaster again like old times. He has a thousand litanies to violence and betrayal, they can afford themselves one night of gentleness -- or at least the closest they can come to the real thing.

He leans in close,  _ too close _ and there’s no going back now. Rests his palm on Maglor’s thigh and clings to the warmth there, skin under clothes, something alive that he can hold onto for a while and he’s falling. He’s falling against him, braced against chest and thigh and there are lips on his that feels like an answer to all of those litanies.

There are fingers tangling in his hair, and he tries to recount how they went from wine to here, but then those pulling fingers are soothing. They undo the loose, messy braids and comb through pale locks, pull harder to bring him closer and he goes without words or protest. 

Those hands move from his hair, slip under his tunic and fumble with the lacings of his brais. This is happening, and he’s half-giddy with it, curls his fingers around the back of Maglor’s neck and drags him into a deeper kiss, bruising lips and clacking teeth. It’s far from graceful and he thinks he can taste blood, real this time, smearing over his lips and teeth and he licks it away, presses the other elf down against the cloak and grass.

He thinks, this is where the poetry begins.

Maglor falls softly back against the earth, pliant and warm beneath him and Daeron traces his fingertips along the arch of his throat. Feels his pulse flutter, the wild beat of a bird's wings under his skin, and he presses his lips, his teeth there. Tasting, claiming, bites down until he feels him arch and gasp beneath him, those long fingers returning to tangle in pale gold hair.

Daeron shuts his eyes against the shadows and when he opens them again he sees Maglor, just Maglor and that's just fine, that's good.

It's his turn to fumble with the lacings of Maglor's brais and there's that laugh again, deeper now, a graveled rasp that makes his face flush down his neck to his chest, he can feel the burn of it traveling.

Maglor sheds his tunic as Daeron inches the brais down his thighs, hesitates a moment because it's not too late for them to back out. But Maglor arches beneath him again, lifts his hips and helps pull the leggings down to his knees and Daeron knows he is lost now.

"You're wearing far too much." Maglor says, plucking at the hem of his tunic and Daeron nearly tears the fabric trying to pull it over his head.

He thinks back to the tavern, to where their battle of wits and words became a skirmish of leavings and clasps and he's still losing. Perhaps in the morning he might care but those lips are on his again and he's drowning, fingers leaving bruises on the soft skin of Maglor's arms as he pushes him back down against the earth.

There's oil in a pouch, another comfort he's allowed himself, something for aching muscles on long journeys and it will do, now. It smells like medicine when he uncorks the bottle and he laughs, draws an amused arch of a dark eyebrow from Maglor. It's a medicine alright, a balm tonight and they deserve this fleeting happiness, as ill-advised and rushed as it may be.

There's oil on his fingers and it's suddenly too real, too much, but then there are tender hands coaxing his own brais down, soothing touches along his thighs up to his hips with softer words. Nonsensical things that quell the pounding in his heart that tells him this is too foolish to be real and he laughs again, a little lighter this time.

"Are you sure?"

"I think it's a little late for that."

It's a little late for a lot of things, and he swallows around the stone in his throat, but not this. He hesitates still and Maglor rolls his eyes, spread his legs and takes Daeron gently by the wrist. Guides his hand down, down between his legs until his fingertips press against his entrance and Daeron doesn't question anymore.

"Please," the word is a half-bitten gasp and Daeron presses in, slow and deep as his own cock twitches hard against his hip.

He's two fingers in and Maglor's cries catch in his throat, hitching little things that sound like harp strings plucked.

Daeron adds a third finger and curls them just so, tries to find that spot and Maglor's broken cry gives it away. He presses against it again, feels hands grip his arms trying to brace against him. Those bright silver eyes are closed and he misses their light, withdraws from Maglor and grips his thigh tight until they open again.

"Daeron, please."

"I'm not going anywhere," he breathes, not sure which of them he's trying to reassure. He slicks his cock with the oil, bites hard on his lip to hold back a moan. It's been too long since he's allowed himself even his own touch and now, now he has Maglor beneath him. Maglor with his legs spread, cock hard against his belly and skin flushed in the moonlight. It's poetic, he thinks this might be the song he's been looking to write.

He grins at the thought, presses the head of his cock against Maglor and teases, "When I compose my lyrics, they will be to the rise and fall of your cries tonight."

Maglor laughs, breathless and bright and beautiful, fingers digging into the freckled skin of Daeron's shoulders as the elf pushes into him. "It would be the scandal of every court and--" a moan escapes him, and his eyes flutter shut a moment, "--every tavern, what would they say?"

"I care not," Daeron says, bites out the words and leans down to press an open-mouthed kiss against Maglor's neck, sweat salty-sweet where it is already beading against his collarbones. He's hot, tight, almost unbearably so and Daeron presses in and in until he's seated to the hilt inside him. 

When they move it’s a sort of harmony; he rolls his hips down and Maglor arches up to meet him, a low moan and a sharp cry mingling together and Daeron can’t hold back any longer. His grip tightens on Maglor’s thighs, presses them up against his chest until the other elf is bent nearly in half and fucks deep and hard into him. He loses himself in the feel, the push-pull-thrust of it all. It’s intoxicating, finer than the honeyed wine they’d drank earlier, the sweet amber liquor resting within reach of them now. He could lose himself in this moment, but he keeps his eyes open, looks down at the face of his lover tonight, into stormy eyes as deep and dark as the sea he sings to and he can’t look away even if he wished.

“Please,” it spills from Maglor’s lips and he leans down to drink the words, the little sounds as he thrusts into him harder, deeper, faster. His hands slip from Maglor’s thighs to his arms, fingertips trace up his arms over the pulse points of his wrists and then curl tight around them, press his wrists down against the ground. Silver eyes are nearly black now, pupils blown wide and they’re more lost now than they have ever been. “Pleaseplease _ please. _ ”

Maglor’s legs are tight around his waist, heels digging into the small of his back and everything comes down to there here, the now, the sensation of it. The night air is silent except for them, the soft gasps and moans, the sound of skin against skin, slick with sweat and oil. He presses his face into the crook of the Noldo’s neck, sinks his teeth into the soft skin there, biting, bruising, leaving his mark so that in the morning maybe it will feel more real. He lets go of those wrists and there are nails at his back, raking red lines down his skin and he hisses against that throat, feels the flutter of the pulse there against his lips. Sucks a bruise there, another mark and those legs pull him in deeper somehow, begging for more, for something, for anything. He would be a cruel thing indeed to deny such lovely pleading, hooks his thumbs behind knees and fucks into him with all he has. 

He turns over half a dozen names in his mouth; strong-voiced, gold-cleaver, makalaure, kanafinwe. Nothing feels right and he moans  _ Maglor _ against his lips before he claims them, bites them until he can taste blood and the body under his arches, gasps into the kiss and he’s lost, he’s lost, he’s falling apart. 

Maglor goes taut beneath him and he swallows a scream, tastes it on his tongue and it’s sweeter than any wine. He half-mumbles encouragement, tells him  _ let go, let go for me. _ He doesn’t last long, another few, shallow thrusts and he can see color burst behind his eyes, closed for the first time since this started but he can still see Maglor’s face, flushed and beautiful and his name falls like a prayer from his lips. 

When it’s over, when he can catch his breath again, when his heaving chest slows to match their racing heartbeats he leans down, capture those full, soft lips in another kiss. Something more real this time, something they can’t hide behind; this is Daeron and this is Maglor and they are in the here and now, together. He kisses his like he’s drowning in it, like he could lose a thousand years of loneliness in that moment. It’s desperate, tasting of salt and blood and silver. 

When they part, gasping for breath, eyes wide and mouths stifling a frantic sort of laughter they cling to each other, nails digging into flesh and holding tight, waiting for the storm to pass.

It does; perhaps it is hours, perhaps it is only minutes. Daeron finds himself lying against the cloak next to Maglor, sweat and seed drying on his skin but there’s a smirk playing on his lips and he finds he doesn’t mind it at all.

“What will you do now?” He asks. It’s soft, barely a whisper, vulnerable. 

“I don’t know,” comes the reply and he can almost taste the fear, the hesitation there. 

He doesn’t know what to say, lays there against the cloth and the grass, feels the breeze dance over his flushed skin and he wonders what either of them have to lose anymore.

“Come with me.” It hangs between them and Daeron thinks even if he could take it back he wouldn’t. He finds he does not care anymore; he’s tired of being alone, and he would give anything for another day, another night like this. They have nothing left to lose.

The silence stretches on and on, he can feel his heart banging against his ribcage like a frightened bird in a cage. He nearly takes it back, fumbles for words, something to turn it into a joke, something said in the heat of the moment.

“Where?”

He thinks for a moment he’s imagined it, thinks his mind is playing tricks on him and he rolls onto his side, wide-eyed and hopeful. “What did you say?” The words are clumsy and Maglor only laughs, small and broken and bitter.

“I said, where?”

Daeron considers it, bites his lip and wonders how far the edges of the map go, where they could hide, where they could wander. “I don’t know,” he says after a while, shrugs and rolls onto his back again. “Do you have somewhere better to be?”

Beside him Maglor laughs, and he thinks maybe he can get used to the sound. There’s a shift, a long stretch of a body settling next to him, arms folding underneath a head and he tries not to think about how hopeful his heart is. 

“I suppose not.” It’s careful and yet careless. 

The stars dance between the dark leaves in the canopy above them and Daeron reaches for the wineskin again.

  
  
  



End file.
